Mom?

I…no…Mother I am working. Yes. Call me on the cell. All right.

Hello? Hi Mom. Yes, I did get the cookies. They were delicious. Thank you. Last night? I was…hold on Mom, I’ve got a call on the landline. OK.

Hi, I’m Candy. Would you like to find out how many licks it takes? Gary, isn’t it? How old are you? No Gary, you’re not eighteen…you are sixteen going on seventeen. May isn’t it? Never mind…I just know.

You can’t call my number if you’re under eighteen Gary. Now why would a nice boy like you call this number? I’m sure there are girls to talk to at school. Oh, geek is an ugly label and you have no reason to wear it. I can tell you’re a sensual soul Gary, you’re just ahead of your peers. Now if you talk to that girl in chemistry, Melissa I think, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. All right…goodnight love.

Hey Mom…just an underager…no, he’s a good boy, just needed a push. Where were we? Last night? Oh yes, I went and got…hang on Mom, duty calls.

Hello, I’m Candy and I have a creamy center…well hi Richard…interview me? That’s a first. Yes, I have the time. Time moves in mysterious ways Richard, different speeds from person to person – sometimes frenzied, sometimes achingly slow. For you, it’s moving at roughly two dollars a minute. But ask your questions; I always wanted to be a character in a book. Besides, there is something almost sublime about a man named Richard calling me for an interview. Just a sec.

Mom? Someone wants to interview me on the other line; it might take a few minutes. No, I don’t think he’s married. Hmm? He writes fiction…no, I won’t ask him how much he makes. Just hold on a few minutes, ‘kay?

All right Richard, fire when ready. No…no, I’ve gone by Candy for a long time, ever since I threw up when we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in first grade…I think those Oompa-Loompas are horrifying creatures. I don’t know…those orange faces…and green hair…can we move on please?

Just a moment Richard, I’m going to put you on hold. Busy night.

Hi, this is Candy and I can moan in almost twenty different dialects. Hi Stan! It’s been weeks. Well, this month I would work on being prompt…I foresee that being important…oh, and stay away from the sushi at that Japanese place on the corner this week…bad ju-ju there. What? Now Stan, you know I don’t do lottery numbers…it’s bad karma. But I am having visions of a red head, a tight white uniform, and a steamy encounter in the back of an ice-cream truck…am I right? Good. I’ll let you hold on to that image and take it from there…no need to run up your bill until you get back on your feet. You’re welcome love. Goodnight.

Still there Richard? Go ahead.

Well…I got my start as a phone psychic. I have a gift. Oh…let’s see, I know that you enjoy silent films and your power animal is the dolphin. Mine’s the lemur.

But that’s the problem. People don’t want accurate readings. They don’t want to know that their child’s turtle will die in thirteen days. They are not impressed when I can tell them what size undergarment they wear or their dead grandmother’s favorite cleaning agent, upon hearing their voice. They don’t want specifics. They want vague assurances of job security and a strong love life. They want to huddle in little corners, receiving promises.

Did you know that an old superstition says that corners attract evil spirits and trap ghosts? True story. There’s a supposedly haunted house at the edge of town, that has no corners…well, almost. A married couple into séances built it during the Victorian era, pretty good as far as eras go. Well, anyway, they design a cornerless house, so they can channel spirits better, good flow and all. Peachy keen idea, but the builder messes up, closes off a set of walls with a ninety degree corner. The story goes that the husband died of heart failure in that very spot…and the house hasn’t been the same since. True story.

Then again, most every house has at least four corners…so by that logic the average house is at least four more times more evil than the haunted house. Oh well. I find bisecting lines a turn-on myself.

Anyway, with sex lines, I’m able to be a lot more specific. I just have the knack. Almost as soon as the receiver hits my ear I know whether your turn on is a blue-eyed farm girl on a green prairie…or getting slapped in the ass with raw steak during foreplay. No explanations necessary, Richard…I don’t judge.

The job transition wasn’t as tough as you’d think. I’m very flexible – I go with the flow in a manner that I’d like to think would get a rise out of a Taoist. Come to think of it…I think I once did.

Oh, just a second.

Hey Mom, sorry I kept you. What were we talking about? Oh, last night…I went and got a tattoo. Mom…Mother, don’t shout, it’s a very pretty tattoo. Well…it’s a German symbol…no not that German symbol. I think it stands for the goddess Nike…or something…I don’t know. I was pretty plastered. No…the artist was very nice; she just has some troubles to work through. Nyx…I said her name is Nyx. Hang on Mom.

Hey Richard, sorry to keep you. What? No, I said Nyx…yeah, I was talking on my cell. Well, Nyx is the goddess of night and one of the oldest deities. She flies around on a freaky chariot, turning the sky black. Pretty scary huh? But most people don’t know that Nyx has three guises, three masks. The first is all chaotic because she was born from chaos. The second mask is dark and macabre because she’s the goddess of night. But the third is bright because she is also the mother of light.

I’m sorry, what’s your next question?

Ashamed? Richard, I haven’t felt ashamed since I threw up in first grade. Yeah…Oompa-Loompas…ugh! But never ashamed…it’s just sex-talk, Richard. It’s so perfectly natural. The line between slutty and sensual is as thin as self-esteem and twice as protective as latex.

I provide an important relief…and people really need it out there. And I’m good. Folks just open up to me for some reason…and I listen to the stuff that’d make a bartender blush.

Hold that thought, Richard…

Hello, don’t tell me your name, I just want you to tear into me…oh…my…you are a naughty one…you don’t get to be naughty very often do you? That’s too bad, I…

…sorry, I dropped the phone. My hands must have been trembling in anticipation of you penetrating me with your…Mom? I…no…I picked up the wrong…listen, Mom, I’m pretty busy right now. Why don’t I let you go and call you tomorrow? All right…I love you, too…no, not in that way…goodnight.

OK…where were we, naughty boy? You sound panicked…what? Your wife is home? Your wife won’t be upset…in fact she will be far more receptive to your naughty ideas than you think…trust me, I know. In fact, if you just go tell her, most of those pesky perceived marital problems will melt away…I promise…yes…even the harness…especially the harness. Bye now.

Sorry Richard, where were we? Oh yeah, too many people wandering about, weighed down by guilt and shame. A very smart girl recently told me that daytime TV plays out like Gothic horror and the newspaper reads like a penny dreadful…and it’s true. Folks out there are controlled by their trauma, real, imagined, or forgotten – boo-boos running soul-deep. Folks feeling like the marks left stain them, curse them to things predetermined. I think that is positively icky-poo.

Me, I’m more into transcendence than pessimism. Fate’s an alibi, man. I believe in perpetual motion. We are more ourselves during transition – from one job, one identity, one metaphor to another. Guilt or glory in the past only holds us down. Too many people put too much emphasis on beginnings and endings and not enough on the middle. You’ve gotta accept the now, to change.

“I Love the Now,” that’s a Jimmy Buffett song. You a Buffett fan Richard?

What? Well, yes…I suppose it is easy to make fun of. Call it New Age – call it flaky…and maybe it is. Take the craze with angels. People want easy answers and things taken care of for them and so they turned those complicated and terrible beings of the heavens into the spiritual equivalent of a smiley face. But is that so wrong? Sure, the New Age angel may be too whispy to exist and too unambiguous to make sense in our world…but I don’t mind the thought of a smiley face swooping down to save us from the Gothic fates every so often.

You have to trust in the duality of things. Trauma is the undeserved tragedy and if it exists…than miracles have to exist because they are the unearned lucky break.

Richard, did you know that freedom smells like chocolate? It’s true, according to a former inmate of Alcatraz. You see, there was a chocolate factory on the San Francisco bay. When Alcatraz closed down, a nudist colony almost moved in. Can you imagine? Dozens walking the prisons grounds naked and free and smelling like chocolate…

Just a moment Richard.

Hello, this is Candy and I know you want to jump my bones…no sir…the suicide prevention hotline is a 1-800 number…yes…why don’t you just talk to me? What’s your name?

Did you know that Bob is the most statistically common name for imaginary friends?

Now tell me Bob, why are you standing on that window ledge? I see…oh dear…well Bob, I can’t say I know what the answer to that is, but I do know that you don’t really want to jump. No Bob, I know what you really want.

Now isn’t that better? I know, Bob…everyone has bad days. You’ll make it better. You’ll improve. You’ll floss. I know that when we hang up, you are going to climb off that ledge. How do I know? I trust you Bob. And I know it is nigh impossible to kill oneself while sporting a gigantic erection.

All right. Night love.

I’m back, Richard…just a wrong number. Like I was saying, there are far too many people wandering the buffet line who feel that being marked by trauma makes them damaged goods. But scars only have the resonance you give them.

But hope is a hard thing…I mean, just listen to the radio. I heard three stories today. Story one told of a 269-pound woman who sat on her boyfriend and beat him to death with a giant stiletto heel. She said it was self defense. The second story featured a loud, drunk man yelling at some poor woman through her backyard fence. Then he stuck his penis through a hole in her fence. The woman’s pit-bull bit it off. Then, after the commercial break, the newsman tells me how one ice cream vendor doused another vendor in gasoline and then set him on fire for selling ice cream in his neighborhood.

But I do find hope, Richard.

I see the words “FUCK YOU” scratched on the stall walls of a truck-stop women’s room, and I find hope – that someone would have that kind of omnipotent optimism, to scratch such a personal message in such a random place, and know, know it will reach the proper recipient.

Writing on the stalls, Richard, writing on the stalls.

I find hope when I divine answers from tea leaves and crystals, when I read the funnies during late breakfasts, and when I read possible futures in my alphabet soup.

I find happiness in voodoo dolls smiles.

I know that trauma spelled backwards is “amuart,” and that somehow makes me feel better.

Life is an island, Richard, if you don’t bring it with you, you ain’t gonna find it.

Another inmate on Alcatraz, locked in isolation, said if you close your eyes you see a light. If you practice and concentrate on the light, you can control it, put your own TV in it and see anything you want. You can go on trips with that light, see anything you need to see.

Sorry Richard…another call.

Hello, this is Candy and I want to be your sticky fantasy…hello Clara, I’m wearing an itchy, itchy sheer thong. What are you wearing? OK…I…uh…you’re at a police station? Bend over so I can use the handcuffs…

The usual phrase is “bite the bullet.” Around here, we just say squeeze the rubber dildo. We call him Bob. My name’s Nyx. “Bob” is the most statistically common name for imaginary friends. “Nyx” is the goddess of night and the daughter of Chaos, riding through skies on her chariot, spreading primordial darkness, making even Zeus wet his pants.

Now what kind of tattoo would you like?

Hmm? Oh, Bob helps us point out all the wonderful places a male customer can get his wee-wee pierced. We also let people squeeze down on him during the worst of a piercing or tattoo – it’s quite cathartic – a little fringe benefit we give the ladies.

Truth be known, one in five guys don’t seem to mind either.

But pain’s not going to be a problem for you tonight, is it? You know, I’m not really supposed to condone getting drunk before receiving a tattoo, technically, I’m not supposed to even work on you.

I won’t tell if you won’t.

Got Bob? Good. What do you want?

This one? This tattoo…I…I’ve had it for a long time, but trust me, you don’t want this tattoo. It’s…

…hey, goodnight Steve. I’ll lock up when I’m done.

That’s Steve, our tribal rope guy. Please don’t ask for a tribal rope – everyone wants a tribal rope tattoo, everyone asks for one permanently branded on their bodies without even knowing what they mean – again and again and…it’s like asking a guitar instructor to teach you “Stairway to Heaven.”

Don’t get me wrong, Steve-o’s a good guy. He was born on St. George’s Eve, which means he’s doomed to rise as a vampire after death…according to Romanian villagers. Lots of ways to hit that pitfall: conceived on a holy day, born the seventh son of the seventh son, mother didn’t eat enough salt, too much salt, born with teeth, an extra nipple, excess hair, two hearts…

You were born on Christmas? No kidding? Children born at sermon time on Christmas can see spirits. Am I serious? It’s peasant folklore – they took it pretty seriously. Then again, Yugoslavian gypsies believe that a pumpkin left out too long becomes a sort of rolling, growling vampire.

Pretty silly.

But you’ve gotta wonder, do kids smash pumpkins on Halloween for fun…or is it some last remaining shred of a dormant survival instinct long forgotten?

My landlord says it’s all ridiculous. His dad had a uni-brow. He’ll be a werewolf.

I don’t know what my father’s eyebrows looked like.

There are worse things than not knowing your father…

Whoa…look at me – freaking you out with werewolves and predatory pumpkins. Don’t usually open up like that with a customer. You’ve got the ear of a bartender. You get that a lot?

So about your tattoo…no, seriously, you don’t want mine, it’s…it’s a Germanic rune – a symbol for the incubus. Incubus – a male sex demon that creeps through windows, at night, and forces itself on women.

Why would you want that?

It looks pretty?

Hey, you’re the drunk chick with a dick in your mitt, so who am I to argue? Where do you want it? Hold still.

You know, it’s funny, you choosing this symbol ’cause it’s just so pretty. Back in the nineties, Reebok released a line of women’s running shoes. They wanted to go with the whole strong, independent woman shtick, and, without researching, took the name “Incubus” because it sounded nifty, and it wasn’t trademarked. Later, after shipping the product, it came to their attention that the name on thousands of boxes of running shoes for strong, independent women, was the name of an evil, male spirit that pounces on sleeping women, crushing and tormenting its victims as it defiles them spiritually and physically.

That had to be one hell of a memo.

The Incubus running shoe was recalled.

Nike had a good laugh.

Learned that little bit from my history professor, he was born with a caul and thus, is immune to drowning and evil spirits.

Lean a little to the left…good.

According to the Malleus Maleficarum, the Inquisition’s guidebook – an incubus can reproduce.

Female demons take the semen from men and give it to male demons to give to women. Wrap your mind around that shit job. Legions of demons waking up Monday morning saying, “God, if I have to deliver one more load of jizz…”

The devil takes the sperm of wicked men and corrupts it further. The children born are demonic things.

Children of monsters are monsters…

You know, in the Victorian period, they put those ruffled skirts on chairs and couches so the legs were not exposed, because that was not proper. They were that uncomfortable with themselves that the naked legs of furniture offended them. But hey, when they found some deviant humping the family couch, he couldn’t say, “Look at this slutty piece of furniture, with its bare legs showing, it was asking for it…”

Shit.

Just a sec, my cell is vibrating. There.

Funny how cell phone commercials are for the higher class of actors while collect call commercials are a sort of limbo for damned celebrities – dead, yet they walk.

Am I a what?

No, I wouldn’t label myself a Goth so much as I’m interested in the Gothic. Goths wear black lace and envy the dead…I just wear black…sometimes lace.

But yeah, Gothic is like…seeing through hypocrisy through a pair of dark shades.

Shelly, Poe, Ann Radcliffe, those are the oldies, but then, in the nineties, Gothic claws its way out of the ground. The Big Bang came when Silence of the Lambs won best film.

Then bam!

King and Rice rule the shadow realms of the genre as Hades and Persephone – Hitchcock spawns illegitimate children like a demon stud – Quentin Tarantino, John Carpenter, the Coen brothers – now vampires and zombies and chainsaws, oh my! Suddenly Dorothy is wearying a black vinyl corset, combat boots, and a safety pin through her cheek, Kansas is overrun with zombies, and the Wizard of Oz just got shived in the communal shower.

And I’m not just talking horror novels and slasher flicks – Gothic seeps into everything, paints it black. The O.J. Simpson case, political discourse, TV news, AIDS discussions, serial killers, repressed memories, molesting priests – everywhere lurks Gothic themes, plots, and characters.

Quoth the Raven, “O.J. did it!”

It’s a genre that says the past possesses and all must pay their due.

You ever watch Oprah? Goth Queen – she is the freaking ideal. Forget all those little kids in white makeup, reading cutesy suicide poems and waxing Byronic between shifts at Starbucks – she is the dark prophetess of fate, eating fat-free desserts in an ebony castle in the sky.

Just turn on the TV. Oprah will set the stage and paint for you grand Gothic epics full of victims, villains, and unfortunates. True to form, the victims are sublimely innocent, easy prey. The villains seem to embody all that is evil…but then we learn they too were victims once upon a time. Their evil becomes inevitable. If you were molested as a child, you’ll be a molester in turn.

No way out.

Sins of the father.

Children of monsters are monsters.

Oprah is fatalistic in a way that would give Edgar Allan Poe a boner. And what do you do with that kind of a Conqueror Worm but spread the seed and now every channel has a day time ring master parading legions of freaks, midgets, and deviants – all misunderstood phantoms of trailer-park rock operas.

And many of these guests are addicted to drugs or sex or abuse – “addicted” being our modern word for the Gothic “haunted.” Now isn’t that more romantic? “The needle tracked heroine was haunted by heroin.”

An online rumor says Oprah was born with an extra nipple, and you know what that means…

But she has two masks. One minute she’s the priestess of fate, and the next she’s advocating transcendence. “I was a welfare daughter just like you…how did you let yourself become welfare mothers? Why did you choose this? I didn’t.” Now it’s the angel craze, self empowerment programs, the inner child movement, Taebo. “Self transformation is as easy as a fairytale wish, just click those ebony slippers and repeat after me…”

Gothic pessimism, or New Age Transcendence – which is it Oprah?

Did you read about the Vegitarian Cannibal? He is somehow both at once. Lord, even the great serial killers have gone flakey. He probably drinks overpriced Chai Tea, holds weekend get-togethers where they discuss past lives and power animals, his being the lemur, and sign ordinances that force kids to Trick or Treat before the sun goes down.

I bet he has a pony tail.

Then there’s the messed up guy at the other end of the apartment complex. He was weaned too early. According to Montel, he’ll grow up violent and abusive, secretly loathing women. According to the Gypsies, he will rise as a blood sucking monster. Either way…

The Inquisition said that God gives demons permission to wander the earth. The more they offend God, the more permission they have to punish the innocent. The incubus often preys on women during holy feasts, to offend God, according to the inquisitors. But those feasts days were taken from pagan feast days and those correspond with full moons and any cop can tell you that all the crazies and predators come out during a full moon. More light.

Hey, don’t drop Bob. You’ll be missing him in a few minutes, trust me. Are you aware that during King Tut’s excavation, his mummified member went missing? Yep, somewhere in this wide, wide world, someone has his petrified penis. Insert stiff joke here.

They say that an incubus doesn’t have a physical body, but can manifest by gathering particles…they come out of nowhere.

An incubus doesn’t have real eyes, they see spiritually…the better to find you.

An incubus doesn’t have real ears, they hear thoughts…the better to catch you.

An incubus doesn’t have a real mouth, but they can from an artificial tongue, teeth, and lips…the better to seduce you.

This next part might hurt more. Hold on to Bob if you need to. In Germany, if a mother gripped a horse collar to ease the pain of childbirth, it’s said the child would become an Alp, a sort of nightmare incubus. It entered the victim through the mouth with its long tongue…or in the form of mist or a snake. Hold on to Bob.

The villagers used to burn the babies out in the yard. They’d look for little batwings or black eyes or little tails on their little bodies. Did my mother ever wish she lived in a simpler time, when those kinds of reminders could go up in smoke?

Smoke.

Smoke break.

Want one? Suit yourself.

I never knew my father. The cops never had a name to give to my mom. Sometimes, I stand in front of the mirror and I try and stretch the bat wings and wag the tail I know are there.

Just keep talking? Okay.

It’s certainly strange. Not Hannibal Lector, hello Clarice, strange, but bizarre enough that I’m talking to you.

How do I get in? I just sneak in and mingle with strangers. It’s easy getting in.

Why? That’s the big question. Morbid curiosity of death? Not really. There’s so many people to talk to, and I’m so…have you ever heard of the Vegetarian Cannibal? He’s in the tabloids. Apparently some guy wanted to be a cannibal, absorb the lives of people or something. The problem was he’s a vegetarian, so he’d murder people and bury them in his garden and then eat the fertilized vegetables.

That’s if you believe those crazy tabloids.

My family? I don’t really have a family to come home to; I don’t even have a pet. I tried keeping one of those un-killable cacti once.

It died.

But I have a great home. It’s all nice and neat, hardly looks lived in. My cupboards are full of those great new single soups. You just pop one in the microwave and eat it over the sink, alone.

They don’t taste very good.

The food at a funeral is good though. Wedding banquets and Labor Day barbecues have nothing on a good funeral feast. Maybe…maybe that’s why I go, for the food.

There are so many funerals. I just look them up and sneak right in.

Friends? I really don’t…I mean I try…you know all those nine-hundred numbers they advertise late at night? I called one of those. Yeah, when the policeman gave me my one phone call…well, I didn’t have anyone to call…just dialed the first thing that came to my head.

I watch a lot of late night TV.

Well this girl answers and says her name is Candy. I say my name is Clara. Then she says she’s wearing a sheer thong. I say I’m wearing a hand-me-down sweater from my grandmother who was put into a home when she went insane and started throwing cats at people.

She sounded a little confused so I explained that I was calling from a police station. She asked me to bend over so she could use the handcuffs. I said I didn’t have any. I asked if she had ever heard of the Vegetarian Cannibal.

She hung up.

What’s the first funeral I remember? I don’t see what…alright. It…it was my father’s funeral. I was just a little girl. My mom didn’t spend much time with me that day, she was…you know they had the best fried chicken at that funeral! You want the recipe? You see you take the batter and…

What? I…I can’t quite say why funeral food’s so good. The taste buds…sing a requiem for the deceased. Sometimes it’s subdued and respectful, mourning a loss, other times it’s spicy and festive, celebrating a life. You look at the lifeless husk in the casket and you think if you just keep breathing, keep eating, keep living, your turn won’t come.

It tastes like…salvation. You eat around people mourning death and you start to appreciate your own life. It becomes a meal of rebirth. You say to yourself, I’m going to finish this food and walk away changed for the better. This time around I’ll be more productive. I’ll learn to play an instrument. I’ll meet new people and get out.

I’ll floss.

The feeling fades. I go from funeral to funeral trying to recapture it. Sitting at home, looking at Spunky’s empty cactus bowl, I really just feel one thing.

stichomythia n : to speak dialogue in alternate lines also (ca 1861) : dialogue esp. of altercation or dispute delivered by two actors in alternating lines (as in classical Greek drama)